Night of the Big Valley Bride
by agrader
Summary: Pursuit of an old enemy leads James West to the Big Valley, where new romance begins for one of the Stockton Barkleys.


Young James West and Artemus Gordon, two special agents in the American West in the 19th Century, had been working for President Ulysses Grant for four years. Their careers had been initially exciting, and they had brought many criminals to justice. Yet in the last year, things had become rather dull. Gordon had been seconded on other assignments frequently, leaving West alone. West himself had noticed his voice degenerating into a toneless mumble. When Artemus returned from his last separate assignment, he was convicted of one simple fact.

"Jim, our cases have been missing something that used to make them so unique," said Artemus.

"Do you mean you in ridiculous disguises, Arty?" asked West.

"No. In the first two years of our special agent career, we encountered four scientific firsts: Dr Miguelito Loveless came up with both a shrinking formula and the ability to travel to an alternate earth by passing through special paintings," said Gordon.

"I know what you mean," said West, "The first year of our career was rather colourless, but I'll never forget the French scientist who invented a formula that enabled him to move at speeds that made everyone else look frozen in time."

"Yes, well that's a formula that I think I might be able to duplicate. I've been working on it ever since," said Artemus, "But speaking of time, our fourth experience was with a man who was able to apply the full capacity of his brain to time travelling into his own past, retaining his knowledge of the intervening years, renewing his youth and changing history."

"I've been trying that too. I took careful note of his technique when he showed us. The trouble is that we've been so busy taking on case after case for the President, that we've had very little time to really advance our experiments. Now that things have finally gone quiet, why don't we finish the scientific research?"

It took them several weeks to do it, but Artemus eventually reverse invented the speed formula and concealed portions of it in both his own and James West's hip flasks.

"You did it, Arty!" said West.

"Just don't offer anyone else a drink," said Gordon.

"I'm confident that I know the time travel technique, but I don't want to put it to the test, unless the need comes to actually change something," said West.

They were unable to test the speed formula either, as a telegram from Ulysses Grant sent them off on a search for an old adversary who had still not been brought in for trial.

Jarrod Barkley was becoming more depressed as time went on. His half brother Heath had moved out of Stockton to further the Barkley Ranch empire elsewhere, and hadn't been seen around the Barkley Stockton mansion for months. Nick's temper had not improved a lot, and he was becoming busier all the time too. Gene had taken a job in another town after finishing his studies. Audra had become a school teacher, having discovered her flare for the job during a few exciting adventures involving small children, and had taken a particular shine to working with a sweet young student named Zeb.

Jarrod himself was still grieving. A ludicrous adventure in Mineral Springs had not really done anything to soften an old and painful wound. Two years earlier his wife had been murdered by a man Jarrod had once sent to prison. They had been married for less than a month. Jarrod had almost killed the man before reigning in his revenge at the last minute. The girl had been sweet, gentle and romantic. Their courtship had been fast, and the loss of Beth Barkley had never left Jarrod remotely near a state of being fully recovered. On this the anniversary of his Denver wedding, Jarrod did neither involve himself in Barkley Ranch business with Nick nor attend the office of his practice as a solicitor. He stayed at home, and grieved.

Downstairs in the living room, Victoria Barkley, Jarrod's widowed mother was dusting the room herself. Silas the butler had resigned his position and taken a wife. To Victoria's utter surprise, a very short and rather handsome man suddenly appeared just in front of a landscape portrait which was hanging on the wall.

"Where did you come from?" she asked.

"Madam, allow me to introduce myself. I am Doctor Miguelito Loveless, and though you may find it hard to believe, I come from another world, another earth in fact, a parallel earth beyond that painting. I am a fugitive, a misunderstood scientist on the run from my world. I committed a number of crimes there, but mainly because I never found true love … until now."

Mrs Barkley had taken his breath away. It would not be untrue to say that Dr Loveless was a breath of fresh air too. His cute sly charm was a change from the large rugged men she had surrounded herself with in the past. Her late husband had turned out to be an unfaithful spouse. She had never held this against his son Heath, who had been born out of wedlock, but had welcomed and defended the young man many times against the bigotry of people in the Big Valley. Here was a small and endearing man who seemed, unlike Tom Barkley, to be honest about his past iniquities.

Since Jarrod, Nick and Audra had not seen Miguelito's bizarre and almost unbelievable entry to her living room, Victoria never mentioned it to them as she began a whirlwind courtship with Dr Loveless in the weeks ahead. In little time at all, Dr Loveless proposed to Victoria, who accepted.

One day, they were all talking together in the living room, when two men suddenly appeared in front of the same landscape portrait.

"Where on earth did you come from?" asked Nick.

"From another earth actually," said Artemus Gordon.

"It took us a while to search your hideout unsuccessfully for you," said James West, "But then I noticed the picture on the wall, and I guessed that you might have used it to flee here. We followed you once before, and we will again. You're under arrest in the name of President Grant."

"Well at the risk of pointing out the obvious, the president of this country is not named Grant," said Jarrod, "I myself uncovered a plot to kill Abraham Lincoln. Now it seems, that my brother and I will have to contend with two false government officials."

Nick and Jarrod had clearly not understood the concept of travel to parallel earths through paintings.

"Take me. Just don't hurt my fiancé!" said Dr Loveless, knowing that such a speech would impress the Barkleys.

James West was a fit and able fighter, but Artemus Gordon had relied on his prowess for years, contributing less to their fights than West, using his skills at disguise and science as his main contributions. Jarrod Barkley, though the more intelligent of the two brothers, had been raised on the Barkley ranch, and had lost physical contacts as infrequently as Nick. The lengthy punch-up that took place in the Barkley living room was close, but ultimately Nick and Jarrod won.

The brothers tied up West and Gordon and made plans to fetch the sheriff the next morning.

"We'll watch them, Mother," said Nick.

"We might as well go to bed then," said Victoria, "Miguelito, you can still sleep in the guest room. My sons won't let these men get anywhere near you."

"Thank you," said Dr Loveless, "James West and Artemus Gordon make for rather formidable opponents. I've never seen anyone get the better of them before."

The Barkley women went to bed, while Nick and Jarrod lay on the couches with their captives still tied on the floor.

"You have to listen to us," said West, "Loveless is a wanted criminal from another world like this one, another earth, just as we told you."

"We know of his disreputable past. He was honest with Mother," said Nick, "And if we hadn't seen your sudden appearance, we'd never have believed your story of another earth."

"But how can you defend him? How can you allow your Mother to be taken in by him?" asked Artemus.

"Legally speaking, this is not his earth, nor yours. Your jurisdiction ends in President Grant's world, if we understand the scientific facts correctly," said Jarrod, "Two years ago I lost my wife Beth within a short time of marrying her. My mother has lost my father. I won't let her lose someone else too. She's the happiest I've seen her in years."

Artemus thought for a moment and asked Jarrod to tell them what had happened to Beth in detail. Jarrod explained.

"What if your wife didn't have to be lost?" asked Artemus.

"Don't be silly!" said Nick, "You two have played enough games with us."

"Easy Nick," said Jarrod, too driven by his heart to deny the strangers a chance to explain the cryptic remark.

"Jim, tell them about the time travel technique," said Artemus.

James West told the story of the time traveller and explained the technique which had been used.

"Why should we believe such nonsense?" asked Nick.

"Why not put it to the test?" asked Artemus, "Try the technique under Jim's tuition. If we're telling the truth, you'll go back to just before Beth was killed, but you'll remember the previous timeline. You'll know when and where he'll strike. You can set up a mannequin of Beth on the riverside, and talk to her. You can have the Heath of back then ready to catch the killer firing that fatal shot into the mannequin and make a citizen's arrest for attempted murder. You and Beth will then be still married to this day, living in the location you had prepared to start your new life in, happy. If we're wrong, then nothing will happen. You'll still be in this house, standing over us."

"I guess it's worth a try," said Jarrod.

Before the eyes of Nick, Artemus and James, Jarrod Barkley sat still on the couch, using none of his intelligence to coordinate body movements, applying all of his brain to the process of time travel. Before their eyes, he vanished from sight.

"It worked!" said Nick, "My memory has the immediate recollections of you two explaining this technique, but I also remember that Jarrod and Beth have been living by the river for the last two years. I suppose you've finally convinced me that you two can be trusted, which means that Loveless can't. If you taught me how to do the time travel too, you'll be here without us to stop you from apprehending him. You probably won't even be tied up. Just promise me that you'll be gentle with my sister and mother when you apprehend Loveless and take him back to your world."

"You have our word," said James West, "But what event in your past do you want to change?"

Four years earlier, Nick Barkley found himself once again riding out an infectious wolf bite, to see if he would survive, far from home, in the care of a widow and her young son, with whom Nick had struck up a fast friendship. This time Nick had advanced knowledge of something that was soon to happen. One night in the city, Nick and his girlfriend would be attacked by two gunmen. In the first timeline, his girlfriend had been shot, and Nick had asked a two towel priest to marry them on her deathbed, to give the son a Barkley name.

This time Nick surprised both outlaws and married the widow, inspired to make the time trip after comparing his situation to Jarrod's. He retained ownership of the Barkley ranch, but left the day to day running to Heath, who trained others to take over in the year that Heath was ready to move out of the Valley as the new timeline unfolded.

So it was that James West and Artemus Gordon found themselves alone in the Barkley living room, no longer tied up. They were about to go in search of Dr Loveless's guest room at the Barkley Mansion, when back into the room walked Audra Barkley, the tall slender attractive daughter of Miguelito's alternate earth fiancé.

"I didn't want to say anything in front of Mother before, but I can understand your concerns about Miguelito," said Audra, "Maybe I could help you to take him by surprise. Would you mind if we had some tea, so that you could tell me of his crimes in detail first?"

Artemus recalled his promise to the previous timeline's Nick and Jarrod to be gentle with the Barkley women in the pursuit of their duty. Both he and Jim decided to at least humour the girl. Audra prepared three cups of tea, brought them into the room on a tray and sat at the living room table. Jim and Artemus drank heartily and began to recount the details of their first encounter with Miguelito Loveless.

Suddenly West and Gordon found themselves shrinking to tiny size.

"How did she do that?" asked Jim, "We never even got up to telling her what happened on the Night of the Raven?"

"Dr Loveless told me about his inventions," said Audra, "Even Mother doesn't know that I asked him for some supplies of some of them, which he naturally gave me in order to keep his fiance's daughter on side. I can't let you two take away Mother's happiness. You'll never even know whether the shrinking formula was in the tea or administered to you in some other way."

Towering like a giantess, Audra Barkley walked over and closed a dainty long slender hand around each of President Grant's special agents, took them quietly to her bedroom and put them onto the pillow.

"Now all I need is a suitably sized cage," said Audra, and got up and walked over to a set of shelves, "Miguelito's antidote to your condition is up here, by the way, but you'll never reach it. Besides, in a moment you'll be caged."

"The relative giantess walked over in her elegant light blue dress, carrying a cage, and sat on the bed beside them, and placed the cage on the pillow.

"You'd both be wise to go in peacefully," she said.

"I guess we should calm our nerves, and our throats, after that hot tea," said Artemus, giving James a wink too small for Audra to notice, "Luckily our hip flasks were on our clothes when you shrank us. They've grown small too."

"I know what you mean," said Jim, "We won't be long, Audra. Do you mind waiting while we refresh ourselves?"

"I'm sure it would be fun to watch you two small men drinking," said Audra, and lay down with her head on the pillow resting sideways to face them.

James West and Artemus Gordon unscrewed the lids of their hip flasks and drank Artemus's recreated version of the French speed formula.

"She looks frozen," said Artemus.

"And she didn't hear you," said Jim, "It must have worked. After what she's put us through, she owes me this method of making sure."

James West walked across the pillow, past the cage and pressed his face against Audra Barkley's lips.

"Come on, Jim," said Artemus, "I know that Loveless and Mrs Barkley are most likely relatively frozen in time too, but we need to get to that size antidote before this wears off."

From the edge of the bed, James West loaded his rope gun and fired the miniature spear up to the shelf containing the antidote, which took the rope with it. Fastening the other end to the bedpost, he and Artemus began to climb the rope, turning back occasionally to look at the pretty frozen Audra Barkley, to check that she was not stirring.

"To her this is all an instant in time," said Artemus, "which will be over the moment this stuff wears off. If she catches us before we reach the antidote, we may not get another chance."

James West reached the shelf first and took the antidote and gave some to Artemus as well. They clung to the rope while they grew, until they were large enough to jump to the floor.

"What happened?" said Audra.

"It's worn off," said Jim, "We'd better go and get Loveless."

"Mother!" screamed Audra.

Before they could find Miguelito's room, they were faced with a rifle toting furious Victoria Barkley in the upstairs hallway in a night dress.

"First you threaten my fiancé, then you attack my daughter. Well you can both leave this house the way you came," said Victoria.

At gunpoint, James West and Artemus Gordon were led back to the living room and forced to pass through the painting and back to the interdimensional painting that Loveless had left in his latest hideout on their own earth.

"We'll just have to wait until they go to bed and then go back, this time with our guns drawn," said West.

They gave the Barkley women an hour to fall asleep on the other earth, and then focussed on the painting. They tried to make the journey again for nearly another hour, but felt exceedingly hot every time they tried, and had to keep giving up.

"We can't seem to do it without getting close to being burned anymore," said Jim.

"It was an experimental process to begin with," said Artemus, "Maybe it only worked for us before, because Loveless had enabled it for himself. He might have changed the properties of the painting at some point."

"I don't see when he would have had the chance," said Jim, "We'll just have to tell Grant that Loveless escaped us once more, though this time I don't think he'll be back."

What neither of them knew was that Victoria and Audra had immediately removed the painting and thrown it into the fireplace, started a roaring fire, which consumed the painting slowly as its thick sturdy frame was burned through for most of the night. James West and Artemus Gordon returned to other duties, occasionally resorting to the speed formula, but never again attempting time travel. 

On Abraham Lincoln's earth, Miguelito Loveless married Victoria Barkley and established himself as a legitimate scientist. He earned vast sums of money rapidly and took Victoria to live with him in a house of his own, leaving Audra the sole resident of the Barkley Ranch, which was run by a hired manager employed by Heath before his departure. The manager lived in the bunk house, which kept good employee relations up between him and the many hard working employees who worked the land.


End file.
